This invention relates to tree harvesting, and particularly to a machine for the rapid harvesting of short rotation forest plantations.
Short rotation silvaculture involves the plantation growth of special hydrid trees in a regular grid pattern for repeated harvest and regrowth from the same stump or coppice. Currently short rotation is being applied to hardwood trees. The crop regrows from the harvested stump and consequently damage to the stump which may facilitate disease, must be avoided.
Current methods available to harvest these trees include cutting with chainsaws and forwarding by skidding individual trees or cutting with a hydraulic shear on a feller-buncher and then skidding small bunches of trees. Chain sawing leaves a healthy stump but skidding of individual trees or the separate operation of bunching them for skidding is too slow and costly. Shearing with a feller-buncher damages the stump and is also slow because of the necessity to stop, manipulate and unload a bunch of trees.